As bad as the Maple Leafs have been most of the past decade, despite the 47 years of anguish on Bay St., the assumption remains: Toronto would never support another pro hockey team.

But 40 years ago this season, the battle was on for the hearts, minds — and wallets — of fans in the city. It would be fought in the confines of the same building, the Leafs’ ancestral home at the Gardens. The invaders wore blue and red, with a snorting bull on their sweaters, and had nicknames such as Shot Gun Tom, Leapin’ Lou and Big Ned.

They were the Toros, “second to none,” as their theme song boasted on their home network, Global TV. Between 1973-76, when they lured disgruntled blue and white fans and provided a high school demographic some Friday night fun, the Toros were goring Leaf Nation.

Who’d be crazy enough to put a team right in the Leafs’ lair? The World Hockey Association of course.

The WHA was already a major irritant to the NHL, but had no presence in the vital Toronto market. Then came the perfect point man in Johnny F. Bassett — handsome tennis star, daring, connected, media savvy and with a score to settle after Ballard had beaten out his father, John, for control of the Leafs a couple of years before.

Bassett came to the ’73 WHA meetings to buy the struggling Ottawa Nationals off Nick Trbovich for $1.8 million. He actually passed a hat around a room full of influential business pals and in no time came up with promissory notes worth $1.1 million. There would be 26 principal investors, including future Leaf chairman Steve Stavro, Toronto Sun founder Doug Creighton and John Craig Eaton.

Bassett quickly tapped into the Canadian advertising firm Vickers and Benson. Team names such as Metros, Blues, Yorks and Royals were tested, but Toros had the most positive feedback. Bassett kept ex-Leaf and Marlie Billy Harris as coach and began a signing blitz of former pro and amateur stars from the city for instant cachet. He was also hands-on with marketing.

“The Toro Bull mascot, the team song, the bull-fighting music, that was all down to Johnny,” said former general manager Gilles Leger. “He was the guy behind the player nicknames. He was such an innovator.”

The first challenge was finding a rink. Thirty years before the CNE Coliseum was renovated for an AHL franchise, Bassett had the idea to refit it as the Toros’ temporary home until his new arena was built to compete with the Gardens. But key city politicos, perhaps influenced by Ballard, blocked approval.

So Bassett settled on Varsity Arena at the University of Toronto, with a capacity of 4,900. It saddled the Toros with an immediate $800,000 operating deficit, but at least they had a foothold.

“Coldest rink I’ve ever played in — and I’m from Thunder Bay,” said forward Lou Nistico. “That was my first year and I’d be freezing on the bench because I sat there so much. Eventually, I just took the blowtorch guys used on their sticks and pointed it at the bottom of my skates.”

Toronto Life covered the first home game, a 4-4 tie with the Chicago Cougars. The magazine noted the circus atmosphere, the mariachi band and most of all, the plodding brand of hockey, but declared it no worse than watching the Leafs, who’d failed to make the playoffs the previous spring.

The Toros went on to win 41 games and make one playoff round. Nine players scored 20 or more, led by 37 from Wayne (Swoop) Carlton and 30 by teen sniper Wayne Dillon. But with his Coliseum plans crushed, Bassett had no choice but to make a deal with the devil. The Toros could play out of the Gardens in ’74-75 and Ballard would make him pay heavily.

There was probably a streak in young Basset that Ballard admired, the latter having stirred the waters in the new World Football League and World Team Tennis. But the Leaf boss viewed the whole WHA as a scourge. Like many NHL owners, he dismissed the rival league, only to see it pick off his low-paid Leafs at contract time. There were rumours the Toros might even nab Pal Hal’s rising star Darryl Sittler.

Fireworks truly began when the Toros lured national hero Paul Henderson away from the Leafs. Ballard finally offered the five-year deal he’d promised the winger after his exploits in Moscow two years earlier, grumbling Henderson probably wasn’t worth the money, but at least he wouldn’t be a Toro. Henderson told Ballard where to stick his contract.

“That was before I became a Christian,” Henderson told Ed Willes in the excellent WHA book The Rebel League. “I’d lost all my respect for Ballard. I didn’t think there was any way we were going to win the Stanley Cup, as long as he was in Toronto. You look at the way he (later) treated Ron Ellis, Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Roger Neilson. He didn’t want anyone bigger than him in Toronto and it killed that franchise.”

“I learned the ins and outs of the business pretty quick,” said Leger. “When we got Ned and Richard Farda to defect, that was pretty scary. I had to do my part from back in North America. I started as the player personnel boss with just one scout.”

Bassett and the Toros were charged a then-outrageous $25,000 rent per Gardens home game, a price that went up a few grand if TV lights were turned on. Ballard also ordered the comfy padding on the Leaf bench removed for Toro games. Bassett had to foot the cost of a new dressing room, too.

“We had to dress right where the Zamboni came out,” recalled Napier. “The washer and dryer had to go right in the room, because there was no space anywhere else.” Such drawbacks didn’t matter to fans, who jumped at the chance to see the big names on the Toros and hockey royalty such as Bobby Hull or Gordie Howe and his sons. They came to witness Shot Gun Tom Simpson score 50 goals in ’74-75. Bassett played up the milestone big-time in the press as no Leaf had yet done it.

There was that wild Slap Shot aspect to the WHA, but the Toros didn’t embrace the goon show until moving to Birmingham, Ala. They became the Bulls and signed a Rogues Gallery under coach John Brophy. While in Toronto, with coaches Harris, Leger and Bob Baun, there were more loonies than louts.

One such free spirit was goalie Gilles Gratton, who wore a roaring tiger mask and once claimed an abdominal injury was a war wound suffered in his previous life as a Spanish Conquistador.

“You know what they say about goalies,” Leger laughed when Gratton’s name was raised. “He was definitely a different cat.” The signings of Napier and Dillon were other bold Bassett moves, circumventing NHL rules on 18-year-olds.

“For me, the Toros were almost the perfect scenario,” Napier said. “I’d just won the Memorial Cup with the Marlies in my second year of junior. Gus Badali was my agent and we used Denis Potvin as an example of a kid who played five years in junior but was ready for pro at 18. The last couple of years were a waste for him.

“It wasn’t as good as the NHL at the time, but still better than junior. I could stay in my hometown and make a lot of money.” Nistico had been drafted by the NHL’s Minnesota North Stars, but jumped when the Toros’ first GM, Buck Houle, showed up with a contract.

“Are you kidding? A kid from Thunder Bay going to the Gardens, playing in front of 16,000 people? That was my dream.

“Hull was my idol. The first time we played him and the Winnipeg Jets, he whipped right by me, his sweater flapping like the Canadian flag. I just froze in awe. Then I heard my dad yelling at me in the stands, ‘What the heck are you doing?’

“The Toros were all good guys, Carl Brewer, Pat Hickey, Peter Marrin, Jeff Jacques, Napes ... I run into them all the time or we play golf and talk about the old days. Our home games had the atmosphere of college football. Not like the suits you see today at the ACC — they just sit still most of the time or never come back until well after the period starts.”

High salaries, low season tickets and the onerous rent combined to doom the Toros by the summer of ’76. They hadn’t made much playoff revenue, either, in a league dominated by the Jets, Houston Aeros and New England Whalers. After talk of setting up in Hamilton, and a last-minute phone blitz to subscribers, Bassett opted for Alabama.

Nistico believes Bassett and the Toros “were at least 10 years ahead of their time,” with their challenge to the Leafs and their aggressive marketing strategy.

“I think they could have survived to the (1979) WHA merger,” said Nistico, who now runs a Junior A team in Kanata. “After that, who knows? Let’s be honest, there are five or six million people in the GTA now and the ACC only holds 19,000. Toronto could easily support two teams.”

Napier, who went on to a successful WHA and NHL career, and now runs the league’s alumni association out of Toronto, also praised Bassett’s vision.

“It would have been nice to see them stay here, instead of Birmingham. How long two teams could have stayed in the same building, I’m not sure. But if Johnny had set up in Markham or a little outside the city, he could have made a better go of it.”

As the Toros’ fortunes began to wane, Bassett was in the first stages of cancer, which would claim him in 1986 at age 47. He remained convinced his team could’ve made its own mark in Leaf-dominated Hogtown, but added “we gave it our best shot.”

************

If you were a sports-loving teen in Toronto in the mid-’70s, you watched the Maple Leafs on TV, but wanted to see the Toros live.

With no Blue Jays or Raptors, the Argos usually toast by Halloween, and computer games still in their Pong infancy, the Toros attracted a young audience to Carlton St. on Fridays and Sundays. They did wacky promotions, invited Evel Knievel to shoot on their goalies, and gave discounted tickets to area high schools, especially in the growing GTA.

A recently lowered drinking age to 18 and a long Ontario teachers strike during ’75-76 helped swell the Toro numbers as local hangouts such as Frank Vetere’s Pizza and the Yonge St. clubs did good business.

Frank Strongoli would gather as many as 10 pals from his Willowdale-Agincourt neighbourhood near Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate for the Friday night events.

“You had to be lucky to get Leaf tickets, but the Toros were the next best thing,” said Strongoli, who now manages Addmore Furniture in Pickering. “I loved their name, the logo, the characters on the team. I thought the WHA had credibility, with Hull, Hedberg, Nilsson and all the ex-Leafs.

“During the game, they’d put the name of every school on the (red curtain alpha board) and of course you’d go nuts when yours was mentioned.”

Friday games were rebroadcast Saturday mornings on Global TV, with a crew that included Mike Anscombe, Carl Brewer and Bill Bird.

“You’d watch to see yourself on TV the next day or bet your parents a buck the Toros would win or lose because they thought it was live,” laughed Strongoli. “The Toros really connected with young people. Even a player such as Mike Amodeo was a favourite. One night after a game they let us in their dressing room. I remember what a big moment it was to touch Frank Mahovlich’s sweater.”

As the WHA had few recognized stars and the Gardens wasn’t big on security, Strongoli pranked fans by walking out the Wood St. visiting players entrance and having his pals pretend to rush him for autographs. That attracted a mob of kids, who 40 years later must be puzzled searching hockey databases for their Strongoli autograph.

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Toronto Toros battled for hearts of hockey fans

As bad as the Maple Leafs have been most of the past decade, despite the 47 years of anguish on Bay St., the assumption remains: Toronto would never support another pro hockey team.

But 40 years ago this season, the battle was on for the hearts, minds — and wallets — of fans in the city. It would be fought in the confines of the same building, the Leafs’ ancestral home at the Gardens. The invaders wore blue and red, with a snorting bull on their sweaters, and had nicknames such as Shot Gun Tom, Leapin’ Lou and Big Ned.

They were the Toros, “second to none,” as their theme song boasted on their home network, Global TV. Between 1973-76, when they lured disgruntled blue and white fans and provided a high school demographic some Friday night fun, the Toros were goring Leaf Nation.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment won’t be able to mark up the ticket prices, but their hockey team is at least trying to convince themselves they’re in the playoffs as the calendar approaches April.